Apollo ARC OCC contact win, steal science is OP?

[rune42]

Compare what you can do without the self-imposed restrictions though. 250 turns is long enough to completely finish out the Tech Web, get all Affinities to 16+ and probably even simultaneously trigger all victory conditions.

That mainly because of Trade Routes.

So while ARC fits well with OCC (because Covert Ops don't scale to number of cities), and Covert Ops are very useful in general, they hardly compare to the utility of Trade Routes. (Polystralia also will do well in OCC, it will be interesting to see which is faster.)

Just like how every sponsor has spies, every sponsor also has trade routes.
ARC doesn't scale off number of cities, but neither does Polystralia.

If you have 1 city, Polystralia has 66% more trade routes, but does not have the option for the overpowered internal trade routes.

If you have 4 or more cities, Polystralia's bonus is less than 20% more trade routes.
Meanwhile, ARC still has 25% faster ops and an easier time maintaining intrigue.

 

[GhostSalsa]

So while ARC fits well with OCC (because Covert Ops don't scale to number of cities), and Covert Ops are very useful in general, they hardly compare to the utility of Trade Routes.

No, but that's why this is actually an instructive exercise - we're looking at a win time that doesn't rely on the most broken and in-need-of-a-nerf aspect of the game - we're seeing a win time that will still probably hold after the next patch.

The two lessons I see here are:
-Steal science is a little too useful considering the high success rate - but not totally in the wrong yield ballpark. 258 OCC win potential is not a sign of a totally broken game.

-The AI needs to attack in this game. Apollo AI should be eating most OCC attempts alive. One ponders over and over again why Civ still even has military units anymore when the devs have tamed the AI to the point of not attacking defenseless targets on sight unless it doesn't "like" them.

 

[Question]

Thats not a failure of the AI, i wouldnt waste time attacking a target if it wasnt beneficial (especially with warmonger penalties) However AIs should attack if you are close to winning.

 

[Aeson]

No, but that's why this is actually an instructive exercise - we're looking at a win time that doesn't rely on the most broken and in-need-of-a-nerf aspect of the game - we're seeing a win time that will still probably hold after the next patch.

He did use Trade Routes as well. Getting your Agents going ASAP relies heavily on those Trade Route yields, so the time will drop (baring some other change) if Trade Routes are nerfed.

There's no problem with 250ish turn wins in any case. That's when the Apollo AI is likely to be getting close to their own wins. (How much a change to Trade Routes will affect them I'm not sure. Not as much as the player for sure.) Even though this was an OCC, it's relying on a system that doesn't really scale much with number of cities.

 

[manatap]

Clearly they need to make steal science scale to the BPT of the faction you're targeting, instead of your own tech. Doesn't make sense otherwise.

 

[ggmoyang]

Yes, I beelined Information Warfare virtue. I did go for industry then but not sure about this, my virtues weren't coming fast enough and didn't help much while building those expensive projects.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Activating the Beacon:

Spoiler :

Win:

Spoiler :

Steal science gives 25%(with special agent) of currently researching tech cost, no matter how low your science is. Well, this is same for the steal tech but... steal science can be used for slingshot.

Congratulations on your win ggmoyang!

25% of whatever tech you are researching is INSANE.